Pine Wood Derby Rules

(This is a continuation of my previous entry on pinewood derby racing sportsmanship)

Finally, I decided. Our friendship was more important than winning the pine wood derby.

I spoke to the father again. I made it clear that the wheel modifications were not allowed but I decided to allow his derby car to be entered. I went on to warn him that if he indeed won, his car would NOT be allowed to race at the district pine wood derby.

Sure enough, “Joey’s” car blew everyone off the track in the 1st heat. I went up to my son and explained that Joey had some illegal modifications that violated our pinewood derby rules and that he might not win 1st place this year. He shrugged it off and was genuinely happy that his friend’s derby car was in first place. I sighed with relief.

So who won? As I predicted, Joey’s car took 1st and Steve 2nd. I told my son that today’s lesson was, “sometimes life isn’t fair”. Now go shake your friend’s hand for winning. Steve couldn’t have been happier. His best friend and he had the fastest cars. I took their picture, along with the 3rd place winner, wrote a short article about the joys of Pine wood Derby Racing for the Trumbull Times newspaper.

Steve was very happy and so was his Dad…for he understood sportsmanship.

In that respect, he was the true winner.